36--O24--One World

Rank: Original #24
Season # 24
Title:  Survivor: One World
Location:  Upolo, Samoa
Broadcast: Spring, 2012
New Players:  18
Returning Players: 0
Winner:  Kim Spradlin
Final Tribal Council:  3 Players 9 Jury
Initial Tribes: Satani and Manona
Swap at 14
Merge at 12
Merge: at 12 Murlonio
Jury: at 12
Premise:  Original Tribes were split into Male and Female Tribes but occupied the same beach.

This was the fourth time that initial tribes were separated by gender (The Amazon, Vanuatu and Panama*).  It was also the second where two tribes shared the same beach, (Thailand) although this was the first time they started out on the same beach.

Kim Spradlin actually played a magnificent game by manipulating the women subtly by first creating part of a 5 women alliance with the help of Sabrina who also made it to the end.  She also blindsided most of the jury but was more visible in those moves and got more credit for them than Sabrina.

Early on much of the season was overshadowed by Colton, who was a "drama queen" who was first miffed that he wasn't on the women's tribe and continually came over to their side and provided the women with information.  The women struggled early, losing 3 of the first four immunity challenges.   Colton, inexplicably gained control of the men's tribe and gave away immunity on day 11 just so he could vote out Bill.

After the women lost Kourtney to an injury in the first immunity challenge which halted it, and gave the men a win, they then voted out Nina in the first Tribal.  The men fell 9 of the next 11 times with only Monica and Kat going out from the women before the final 5 women played it out in one of the more successful women's alliances.

This season also had one of the best Loved Ones moments as Tarzan (not to be confused with Troyzan) got down on one knee when his wife came out in a poignant moment not lost on most of the other women in the tribe. On the other end of the spectrum, we had one of the weirdest loved ones visits, when Kat got down on all fours to greet her cousin.

Unfortunately, Kat won the reward challenge and took Kim and Alicia, while the others thought she should have chosen Tarzan.   Kat was then voted out unanimously.

This exemplified a lot of the lack of self-awareness of most of the players.  Colton and Kat dominated the edit way too much.  Colton was a despicable character, not unlike Brandon Hantz, but somehow both were brought back in subsequent seasons and quit.   Kat was naive and was just a sad character to watch and was also brought back for Blood vs. Water, but perhaps that was more because of her Big Brother boyfriend.

It had a few good moments, but it was mostly just not fun.  Originally I had this as the worst Original Season, but a rewatch of Nicaragua and World's Apart moved this season up two spots.

* Panama had 4 tribes and separated by gender AND age. 

Update:  1/24/2021--Rob Has A Podcast ranked this as the 37th Overall on it's Top 40 Countdown (2021) 






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